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Assistants at the Royal Observatory |
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| © National Maritime Museum, London |
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| Repro ID: H6488 |
| Description: Edward Walter Maunder worked as an assistant at the Observatory from 1873 to 1913, and again from 1915 to 1919. He arrived when George Biddell Airy was still in charge, and stayed on under William Henry Mahoney Christie and Frank Dyson. Working in the Photographic and Spectroscopic Department, he became particularly interested in the Sun. With his wife Annie, he collected data on sunspots, from which they concluded that sunspots went in cycles (as demonstrated in Maunder’s famous butterfly diagrams) and these cycles could be linked to magnetic disturbances and changes in weather. He was influential in the formation of the BAA (British Astronomical Association) in 1890, and in 1900 he wrote a book describing the Observatory as it then was. |
| Creator: unknown |
| Date: unknown |
| Credit line: National Maritime Museum, London | |
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